The action of the Diet of 1526, and the quarrel
between the Emperor and the Pope, were highly favorable to the progress
of the Reformation. But the good effect was in great part neutralized
by a stupendous fraud which brought Germany to the brink of a civil
war.

Philip of Hesse, an ardent, passionate, impulsive,
ambitious prince, and patron of Protestantism, was deceived by an
unprincipled and avaricious politician, Otto von Pack, provisional
chancellor of the Duchy of Saxony, into the belief that Ferdinand of
Austria, the Electors of Mainz and Brandenburg, the Dukes of Saxony and
Bavaria, and other Roman Catholic rulers had concluded a league at
Breslau, May 15, 1527, for the extermination of Protestantism. He
procured at Dresden a sealed copy of the forged document, for which he
paid Pack four thousand guilders. He persuaded the Elector John of
Saxony of its genuineness, and concluded with him, in all haste, a
counter-league, March 9, 1528. They secured aid from other princes, and
made expensive military preparations, to anticipate by a masterstroke
an attack of the enemy.

Fortunately, the Reformers of Wittenberg were
consulted, and prevented an open outbreak by their advice. Luther
deemed the papists had enough for any thing, but was from principle
opposed to aggressive war;941941 See his letters on this subject in De Wette,
III. 314 sqq.
Melanchthon saw through the forgery, and felt keenly mortified. When
the fictitious document was published, the Roman Catholic princes
indignantly denied it. Duke George denounced Pack as a traitor.942942 After a fugitive life, Pack was beheaded as a
forger in the Netherlands, 1536, at the solicitation of Duke
George. Archduke Ferdinand declared that
he never dreamed of such a league.

The rash conduct of Philip put the Protestant
princes in the position of aggressors and disturbers of the public
peace, and the whole affair brought shame and disgrace upon their
cause.